Salesforce Inbox
Salesforce Inbox was an email productivity add-on for Sales Cloud that integrated with Gmail and Outlook to help sales reps automatically log emails, track email opens and link clicks, schedule meetings, and create Salesforce records directly from their inbox.
Definition
Salesforce Inbox was an email productivity add-on for Sales Cloud that integrated with Gmail and Outlook to help sales reps automatically log emails, track email opens and link clicks, schedule meetings, and create Salesforce records directly from their inbox. It has been retired, with its core capabilities now incorporated into Sales Cloud's standard email integration features and Einstein Activity Capture.
In plain English
“Salesforce Inbox was an email productivity add-on for Sales Cloud that integrated with Gmail and Outlook. It helped reps log emails, track opens and clicks, schedule meetings, and manage tasks. It's been retired, with its key features absorbed into Sales Cloud and Einstein Activity Capture.”
Worked example
Hawthornwood Capital's sales team used Salesforce Inbox from 2017–2024 - a Sales Cloud add-on integrating with Outlook and Gmail to log emails, track opens and clicks, schedule meetings via embedded calendar, and create Salesforce records from emails. With Salesforce Inbox retired in 2024, its capabilities migrated into Sales Cloud's standard email integration plus Einstein Activity Capture. The team didn't have to change their workflow; the underlying product just transitioned to absorbed-into-the-platform from a separate add-on. Salesforce Inbox is now a historical SKU, not a current product.
Why Salesforce Inbox matters
Salesforce Inbox was an email productivity add-on for Sales Cloud that integrated with Gmail and Outlook to help sales reps automatically log emails, track email opens and link clicks, schedule meetings, and manage tasks from their email client. It bridged the gap between email (where reps spend much of their time) and Salesforce (where activity data needs to live).
Salesforce Inbox has been retired, with its key capabilities absorbed into the core Sales Cloud platform and Einstein Activity Capture. Organizations still using Inbox should migrate to the current capabilities. Einstein Activity Capture provides email and calendar sync, while Sales Engagement provides the cadence and outreach tracking that Inbox formerly handled.
How to set up Salesforce Inbox
Salesforce Inbox was the dedicated email productivity add-on for Sales Cloud — Gmail / Outlook integration with email-to-record auto-logging, open / click tracking, meeting scheduling. It's RETIRED. Capabilities were absorbed into standard Sales Cloud features (Lightning for Outlook / Gmail Integration / Einstein Activity Capture). New work should configure those instead.
- Recognize that Salesforce Inbox is retired
Salesforce sunset Inbox as a separate product. The page may still show in older orgs but is read-only / migrating.
- Migrate to the modern stack: Gmail Integration / Outlook Integration + Einstein Activity Capture
Setup → Gmail Integration and Sync (or Outlook Integration), then Setup → Einstein Activity Capture.
- Train users on the new email-from-Salesforce workflow
Most Inbox capabilities (auto-log, schedule meetings, email tracking) work via Lightning Email Composer + EAC.
- For email tracking specifically: enable Email Tracking in High Velocity Sales / Sales Engagement
Tracking opens and clicks lives in Sales Engagement / High Velocity Sales settings, separate from the inbox integration itself.
- For old Inbox users: confirm permission set assignment
Old Inbox-specific permissions may still be on user profiles. Reassign to Sales Engagement / Lightning for Gmail permission sets to ensure feature continuity.
See those terms.
See einstein-activity-capture.
Per-org enablement of opens / clicks tracking.
- Salesforce Inbox is retired. Documentation referencing it is outdated. Plan migrations to the modern integration stack rather than configuring Inbox directly.
- Existing Inbox installations may continue to work but won't receive updates. Plan migration before relying on Inbox for new sales-team rollouts.
- Some Inbox-specific data (email tracking pixel histories, pre-EAC sync logs) doesn't migrate cleanly to the modern stack. Accept that historical data may be lost or kept in a legacy archive.
How organizations use Salesforce Inbox
Migrated from Salesforce Inbox to Einstein Activity Capture for email logging and tracking.
Helps clients transition from retired Inbox to current Sales Cloud capabilities.
Uses Einstein Activity Capture as the modern replacement for Inbox's email sync.
Test your knowledge
Q1. Is Salesforce Inbox still available?
Q2. What replaces Inbox's email sync?
Q3. What replaces Inbox's outreach tracking?
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